Advice needed on PCI Flexmotion-6C firmware upgrade

[cidm]

Hi !

We have a CNC machine that used to run an old software on WIndows 95. This software controls a PCI FlexMotion 6C and the card drives the machine. We had hard time making the system stable with windows 95 so we decided to move to windows 2000.

Everything work as expected with the new 5.11 drivers EXCEPT for speed. The machine is running at around 50% of the original config on windows 95. We do have 3 "packet lenght" errors when we start the cutting software. I tried to change the "velocity" value in Trajectory setting for both axis 1 and axis 2 but MAX software gives me an error about firmware being too old.

Should I do the firmware upgrade ? Is it a safe procedure to do ? Could it help me resolve the "packetlenght" errors a t software startup by having a firmware that fits withthe newest drivers ?

I just don't want to screw up the card and stop production, we have no access to the source code and to the programmer of the software... 😞

Thanks for your advices

Francis

[Jochen]

Francis,

the driver software for NI motion control boards consists always of two parts: The driver for the host and the firmware on the board. If you upgrade the driver it's strongly recommended to upgrade the firmware, too, because this is the constellation that was thoroughly tested at NI. Upgrading the firmware is a safe process as long as you don't interrupt the power during the download process (which takes less than 1 minute).

Kind regards,

Jochen